Sailors on the stricken Greek vessel the Nafsiporos feared they were doomed until they heard a message from the Holyhead lifeboat crew: “It’s Christmas time and you will see your ladies and babies for Christmas”.

A survivor from one of the most remarkable rescues in North Wales’ maritime history will today give moving thanks to his rescuers, 50 years to the day his life was saved.

On December 2 1966, Anglesey lifeboatmen went to the aid the Greek cargo ship, the Nafsiporos – a 1,287-ton freighter carrying 19 crew.

Crews from Holyhead and Moelfre risked their lives battling waves as big as houses and 100mph hurricane winds to pluck the Greek sailors to safety from the wildly listing Nafsiporos, which was drifting dangerously towards rocks north of Anglesey.

Greek survivors said they had lost all hope in the mountainous seas before hearing a message from the Holyhead lifeboat crew: “It’s Christmas time and you will see your ladies and babies for Christmas”.

Today five of the surviving Holyhead lifeboat crew members from the rescue will watch messages of gratitude from the Nafsiporos’ Second Officer Anestis Rokopoulos, now 73, in a special 50th anniversary film.

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Graham Drinkwater, Eric Jones, Jackie Hughes, Will Jones and Brian Stewart will be guests of honour at the event.

In the film, Anestis said: “My only message is thank you. I am alive only because of these people. I make a family and I make grandchildren only because of these people.”

Remembering the conditions at sea 50 years ago, he added: “We had no control and no steering.

“The rocks looked like knives. Then from the depths of the sea came these boats and we said ‘they have come for us’.’

Graham Drinkwater, Holyhead RNLI’s current Lifeboat Operations Manager, was only 19 at the time of the rescue. It was his first ever lifeboat shout and he earned a Bronze Medal for Gallantry.

Graham Drinkwater (Image: RNLI)

He said: “It’s fantastic to hear from Anestis today and his message of thanks means a great deal to us.

“To hear that the Greek sailors went on to live long and happy lives makes us all extremely proud.”

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He added: “As a first shout as a teenager it certainly isn’t one I’ll ever forget. But lifeboat men and women don’t go out to be gallant or to save the world, it’s just part of your life – you just do it.”

On the wild morning of December 2 1966 Lieutenant-Commander Harold Harvey, RNLI Inspector for Lifeboats for the North-West, happened to be in Holyhead.

The extreme weather had brought down phone lines and made it impossible to hear the sound of maroons usually used to summon crew.

He volunteered his services as an extra hand and the Holyhead lifeboat, St Cybi, was eventually able to launch at 10.30am.

After three hours of searching, the crew eventually reached the stricken freighter, which was in a perilous state, just eight miles from the Anglesey coast and still moving at three-and-a-half knots, completely at the mercy of the storm.

The waves were 35ft high and the Nafsiporos was rolling alarmingly and being lifted high in the sea, her huge propellers churning in the air above the heads of the lifeboat crew.

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By 4pm, the sun had set and one of the freighter’s lifeboats had come loose and was swinging on a single davit, making it incredibly difficult for her rescuers to get anywhere near her.

The Greek crewmen on board had to climb down a ladder on the side of their boat, dodging the dangerously swinging pendulum of their own lifeboat, and then leap to the RNLI boat, which was also being lifted and dropped by the sea.

Holyhead Second Coxswain William Jones, later remembered: “The rise and fall between the ship and lifeboat was enormous, one moment we were looking up at her and the next we were in line with her deck, a matter of around 20 feet or more.”

Anestis Rokopoulos with his granddaughter and wife, pictured with Dion Theodorou (right) whose uncle was also rescued from the Nafsiporos (Image: RNLI)

Five Greek sailors made it to safety before the swinging lifeboat fell, crashing onto the Holyhead lifeboat. Miraculously nobody was hurt.

Then it was the turn of Moelfe, under the command of Coxswain Dic Evans.

Recalling the rescue later, the legendary seaman said the waves were “like nothing he had ever seen”, and he feared each one would send the small lifeboat somersaulting onto its back.

“There would have been no hope for any of us then, we would have disappeared forever,” he added.

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Despite this, he manoeuvred alongside the Nafsiporos and kept steady enough for his crew to pull 10 of the sailors to safety.

The lifeboat was then swept onto the deck of the Nafsiporos, but was washed off moments later. Now badly damaged and without electrics and lighting, it set course for Holyhead to land the 10 survivors.

Five of the surviving Holyhead RNLI lifeboat crew from the Nafsiporos rescue

By the time they arrived ashore, Coxswain Evans, then aged 61, had been at an open wheel exposed to the hurricane conditions for nearly 13 hours without a break.

Leesa Harwood, RNLI Community Lifesaving and Fundraising Director, said: “The more you hear about the rescue of the Nafsiporos the more incredible it becomes.